“Nasty, Brutish, and Short”—An Analysis of Hobbes’ Social Contract Theory
By Jake Lee
Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan is a seminal work on Social Contract Theory. In an era of the “divine right of kings”, Hobbes formulates a system that, despite lacking the objectivity that comes with a supreme power, is just as capable of stability and morality. Hobbes’ central thesis is that individuals, desiring the fulfillment of their own self-interests, are willing to sacrifice some of their rights by creating a community with other agreeing individuals. While in “The State of Nature” (Hobbes’ theoretical pre-law era), human lives are “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”, with a social contract people can create a community where industry flourishes. A contract is simply an agreement between parties—if I own an apple orchard, and you own an orange orchard, we can agree to trade our produce, benefitting us both. These agreements, while seemingly lacking in philosophical value, are what Hobbes argues creates our entire moral framework. While before, I could only get oranges by stealing, the contract now gives us a safer method to trade. However, if either of us were to steal now, the contract would be invalidated and we would return to the State of Nature. By following the contract, I limit some of my rights, namely the right to steal, but that is not a major sacrifice given the benefits of the agreement, since I am “willing, when others are so too…to lay down this right”. We now have a sense of things that we should and should not do, and from it an idea of “injustice”—breaking a commitment made by contract. This is law.
However, laws require enforcement. If injustice is committed without punishment, then the Social Contract is essentially null. According to Hobbes, because I am purely self-interested, if I can steal your oranges without getting caught or punished, I will do so. This would mean our agreement to trade holds no weight, and therefore we would eventually return to distrusting one another. This is where Hobbes establishes the need for a Leviathan, the titular figure of his book. In a second contract, we “must imbue some one person…the authority and power to enforce the initial contract”. The Leviathan is a monarch who holds absolute power, given to him by individuals in the contract, and uses this power to enforce the initial contract. Hobbes specifically claims the “sovereign [must be] absolute…or else there is no sovereignty at all”. Thus, the monarch’s force binds people to the contract under fear of punishment for committing injustice.
This is where the first contradiction arises. Individuals seem to join a social contract in order to have reciprocal benefits. I desire oranges and you desire apples, and therefore we benefit one another by trading. In the Hobbesian system, however, reciprocity between the subjects and Leviathan is not necessary. We are compelled to follow laws because the Leviathan enforces them with punishments. But the Leviathan has no fear of his own punishments, and because he controls the only means of enforcement, there is no way to compel him to any action.
John Locke (1632-1704), English Philosopher and “Father of Liberalism”
In comparison, John Locke writes that people have Natural Rights to “life, liberty, and estate”, and a government is obligated to maintain these rights, lest the people rightfully rebel. The reciprocal benefit of this relationship between citizen and government is therefore the preservation of natural rights. Hobbes, like Locke, claims people have the “right to govern their own bodies; enjoy air, water, motion, [and] ways to go from place to place”. Yet there is no method to affirm this. An absolutist monarch, by definition, holds the right to violate all. Therefore, it seems contradictory for Hobbes to suggest that people, being self-interested, would choose to limit their right to life and autonomy when a social contract with reciprocal benefits is available.However, Locke’s system is not infallible. It is undeniable that people would have disagreements over any number of issues in a social contract. Without a final decision maker like the Leviathan, factional differences may arise that freeze or tear apart the government, sending us back to the State of Nature.
The namesake monarch in the Leviathan is heavily celebrated by Hobbes. As the “mortal god to which we owe, under the immortal God, our peace and defence”, the Leviathan is meant to be a figure of praise, respect, and complete surrender. It is therefore necessary to emphasize that the Leviathan, being a human individual, is under the same presumption of action and belief as every other human being. Hobbes’ notion of self-interest means that the Leviathan will do whatever he can get away with. Being the only enforcing power in a society, this is a functionally endless prescription of action, limited only by the resources owned by the populous and therefore amassable by the Leviathan.
Hobbes’ response to this challenge is that “the State of Nature is much more brutal on man than even the worst sovereign”. An existence where individuals cannot cooperate with others in any meaningful way is worse than a system where individuals can rely on a supreme entity to punish injustices, even if the Leviathan is imperfect. But while this statement may seem true, this fails to acknowledge the power held by the Leviathan as an individual.
Let us consider two scenarios: an opposition between two individuals in the State of Nature, and an opposition between a citizen and the Leviathan.
In the first, both will do what is in their power to achieve their self-interest. Though one may be stronger than the other, they are still both single human beings.
However, a citizen is no match to a Leviathan. When opposed, the power imbalance is insurmountable, since the Leviathan utilizes the power given to him by all individuals who accept his contract.
Since the Leviathan is a self-interested individual like any other, the odds of him opposing another individual is the same if not higher than someone doing so in the State of Nature, since he has both the desire and the capability to oppose others. From this, it seems reasonable to conclude that choosing an absolutist monarch is not actually better than the State of Nature.
However, the State of Nature is not between two people. There are multitudes of people who may be opposed to others at any time, and therefore it can be argued that stripping all of them the right to murder, except the Leviathan, is preferrable. In addition, Hobbes promotes a society under the monarch that teaches that “the riches, power, and honour of a monarch arise only from the riches, strength, and reputation of his subjects.” Therefore, subjects’ self-interests are molded to align with the self-interests of their monarch.
But these are inadequate defenses. Though there are many people in the State of Nature, it is unlikely for them to all oppose an individual, while the Leviathan is capable of utilizing a comparable force for a singular purpose: to further his own self-interest. Additionally, monarchs are not the only ones who can mold the self-interest of individuals, and as seen next, Psychological Egoism can be used to justify any action as self-interest.
Lastly is the issue of Psychological Egoism—the belief that all human beings are motivated solely by their own self-interest. This underpins all of Hobbes’ arguments regarding Social Contract Theory and the Leviathan, since without it there would be no need to believe in a “State of Nature” in which individuals, purely self-interested, would pillage, rob, and murder one another when capable of doing so. If individuals had desires to create a community without compulsion under a fallible Leviathan, then Social Contracts would not be necessary to preserve peace and morality.
Psychological Egoism is not, in fact, a philosophical theory. It is rather “an empirical claim about what kinds of motives we have, not what they ought to be”. And because it is meant to describe the entirety of human nature, only one exception to Psychological Egoism is necessary to dismantle it.
It seems obvious in daily life that self-interest is not always our primary motivation. Personally, I would not consider myself a Psychological Egoist. There are cases in which I have consciously not furthered or even worked against my own self interest—donating money to charity instead of spending it, consuming unhealthy foods, and procrastinating.
At a prima facie analysis, this seems like evidence enough. If I act in ways seemingly against my own self-interest, then clearly I am not a Psychological Egoist. However, Hobbes points out that self-interest is not purely a materialistic compulsion. We have priorities in our family members and community, which have wide-spread benefits to the rest of the world, but are still based on self-interest. Peter Singer describes a scenario where Thomas Hobbes, when called out for violating his own theory when donating to a beggar, explains that “he gave the money because it pleased him to see the poor man happy” By expanding what it means to be self-interested, Hobbes creates a definition of self-interest compatible with compassion.
However, this definition does not align nearly as well with the State of Nature. Being “self-interested” to support others, develop community, and foster the arts is nowhere near the chaos of conquest and war that would require a Leviathan. It could be just as easily argued that individuals are “self-interested” to create a Lockean Social Contract, or to become Utilitarianists, or become Christian or Muslim or Jewish depending on how they are raised and a variety of other factors.
Additionally, if this explanation is not satisfactory, a general line of reasoning of exceptions goes as follows:
Psychological Egoism defines all people as desiring their own self-interest
In order to fulfill their self interests, people must be capable of acting towards their goals
If an individual is dead, they are unable to act towards their goals
Ergo, to end your own life would prevent you from fulfilling your self-interests. Following from this, choosing to end your own life would be an act against self-interest, and therefore incompatible with Psychological Egoism. There have been thousands of cases where individuals have given up their own lives, and therefore their own self-interest, to save others. Rick Rescorla, Godwin Ajala, and Benjamin Clark are three individuals who each independently sacrificed their lives on 9/11, choosing to use their knowledge of the building to help others over themselves. To say that they were motivated by self-interest to prevent the fulfillment of their self-interest is illogical.
In conclusion, while the Hobbesian Social Contract is successful in proving the human capacity to create morality through commitments, it contains contradictory points that invalidate its major conclusions. Self-interested people would much rather live in a system where they can expect reciprocal benefits, not complete submission. Life under the Leviathan is not truly better than the State of Nature, since all opposition is futile. Lastly, Psychological Egoism, as seen through personal and logical evidence, does not have absolute control over our lives. Thus, I believe Hobbes fails to use the philosophy of the Social Contract Theory to rationalize the existence of the absolutist monarch, and the Leviathan fails to earn his right to power from these arguments alone.